(My) Magical Mystery Tour
Photos: Fayeka Zabeen Siddiqua
"Is there any name for that feeling when hours of research tell you that you are going to witness something beautiful and you feel excited about it, but when you have it in front of you, you sense a weird ache in your stomach?" I asked my cousin as I stepped inside the Lower Antelope canyon.
"'Excruciatingly beautiful'- that describes something so beautiful that it hurts. I don't know what that feeling is called though," she replied after a short pause.
There we were. After days of planning and speculation, finally we were here, inside the Antelope Canyon.
We were sitting on a rock inside the canyon, smitten by a voiceless bewilderment, talking and not talking.
There are actually two slot canyons, lower and upper, that make up Antelope Canyon. We were in the lower antelope canyon which was formed mostly by erosion of Navajo Sandstone due to flash flooding and water rushing through the rocks.
Of all the slot canyons located in the Southwest, Antelope Canyon is mostly visited. We chose the lower part, more adventurous and less crowded. You won't find many tourists lounging there. "But you have the ideal condition for taking a tour- the right combination of depth, width, length, colour and light," our tour guide says.
Lower Antelope Canyon is a photographer's paradise. In fact, there are tours specifically for those with tripods and fancy cameras, for people who love playing with angles and colours. We took the walking tour, where you have a tour guide who will not only help you with your trail but also assist you in figuring out the best angles and spots where you can take the best shots. I tried, took some pictures, looked at the display of my camera and discovered what a failure of a photographer I was. I decided not to get worked up over getting the perfect, wallpaper-like shot. I would rather sit on a rock and enjoy the moment.
Getting down all the way there was quite an adventure. It was a hot day, and by hot I mean blistering – the temperature was over 100 degrees. It requires a fair amount of footwork, as you need to walk down the canyon on steep stairs and ladders, navigating through extremely cramp corridors. You need to safeguard your head as there is a chance of hitting the protruding fins of the walls (as I obviously did). For the sheer drops, you need to trust your instinct and climb them with agility. While climbing the many stairs - steep and spiral - you might constantly fear falling off (as I obviously did).
But I am ready to go through many more ordeals, if I am required to do so, to see the sculpted, orange, thin layered walls and to feel the dusty red sandstone inside my converse.
Wait, was it solid orange coloured? Or orange mixed with blue or peach? Or something between pastel pinks and red? Or a purplish red?
I can't decide and that is where the beauty of the Antelope lies - the way the light keeps dancing on the fiery walls. At some point, it seems like an artist's palette - all the colours are squeezed out and mixed. They appear different each time you see them. Each season. Each time of the day. Each hour.
The tour inside the canyon took a little over an hour. Not too crowded. Not too hurried.
We got back to our car and hit the road again as the sight of yellow lines started fading behind me in the rear view mirror.
Visiting Antelope Canyon was the agenda of the first day of our trip, and the next day we were about to visit the Grand Canyon.
The landscape in Arizona keeps changing at every turn. It is so quick that before you are able to inhale the beauty of the vast deserts as you drive by them, you come across some bizarrely sculpted rocks, which might turn into a range of mountains the very next moment. You feel baffled, wondering which direction to look at. On our way back to Flagstaff from Page, we indulged in a lot of 'oohs' and 'aahs' over the vastness and changing colours of the sky.
Leave aside Antelope Canyon or the grandeur of the Grand Canyon, the lone cacti and the deserts, the Arizona sky was magical and versatile and in its full element.
At one point, it was clear with the perfect blue, and layers upon layers of white clouds. I could not believe my eyes when suddenly we saw batches of dark clouds heading our way; a storm was approaching. Then there were dazzling thunderbolts; we witnessed a lightning strike right before our eyes, at a considerably close location, and couldn't help but let out a collective gasp of surprise and fear. Then a few hours later, there was a rainbow. Correction: rainbows. We saw two of them.
Tell me, why shouldn't I still be marvelling at the amazing Arizona sky? The two-day road trip was my version of a magical mystery tour. Because those lyrics of The Beatles' song were rumbling in my head all the while:
"…the magical mystery tour is waiting to take you away
Waiting to take you away"
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